Doomsday cult

A doomsday cult is a new religious movement or cult that says that the world is about to end. According to these cults, the world's end will be a catastrophe, and the only way to be saved is by joining the group and by doing what it says.

John Lofland first used the term in 1966, in a study of the Unification Church. Some researchers believe that the term should not be used by mass media or by governments, because it will reinforce the beliefs of the respective group, and lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Examples

Examples of groups said to be doomsday cults include the Peoples Temple, Aum Shinrikyo, and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God.

The People's Temple

See the main articles: The People's Temple and Jim Jones

The People's Temple was a doomsday cult founded by Jim Jones in 1955. He took a group of his followers to Guyana to start a new society. However, according to one source:

Jonestown sounded more like a slave camp than a religious center. There was talk of beatings, forced labor and imprisonments, the use of drugs to control behavior, suspicious deaths, and even rehearsals for a mass suicide.

In the fall of 1978, United States Congressman Leo Ryan traveled to Guyana to investigate these allegations. Cult leaders murdered him; then, before the murder could be found out, Jim Jones ordered all 900 members at the compound to drink beverage with cyanide in it. Not all of the deaths were voluntary. According to one source:

Surrounded by armed guards, residents were given a choice: They could die by bullet or they could die by poison. Life was never an option.

Over 900 men, women, and children died in this massive murder-suicide.

Aum Shinrikyo

In 1995, Aum Shinrikyo attacked attacked the Tokyo subway with sarin, a deadly chemical weapon. Thirteen people died and thousands more were sickened.

Aum Shinrikyo is an example of several "increasingly violent doomsday sects, inflicting mass violence on their members and, in rare cases, also on outsiders", according to author Brynjar Lia.

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments

In Uganda, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments predicted the world would end on the 31st December 1999. When this did not happen, people in the movement became skeptical. They had donated property to the church leader, and wanted it back.

At a religious service on 17th March 2000, the church where the service was held was lit on fire, and 530 people died. During the inquiry, the police found other people dead at the properties owned by the movement. These individuals had likely been poisoned. In total, over 1000 people had died. The leader of the movement survived, and has not been seen since then.

Others

Followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh have used of salmonella as a poison.